Duly Noted: The Nut of Tripoli
George Handlery about the week that was. It is a nuthouse and the inmates hold the keys. How not to negotiate with tyrants. Aims that Stalin and Hitler did not pursue. Can one avoid provoking terrorists? Money for climate. The insider deals of the political class.
1. For about a year, mainly to serve the cause of unintended humor, an item titled “The Dictator’s Tantrum” has been presented to you. An issue or two ago the end of the quaint story has been announced. This proves to be a serious error of judgment. Innocently, I had concluded that at the price of an unnecessary humiliation, Switzerland has put aside her quarrel with Qaddafi. Well, the story, like a successful soap opera, goes on. And on.
Everything that has happened so far is less important that the “newest” episode. In it a credulous democracy represented by stumblers was victimized by a tyranny run by what is, to put it politely, an eccentric. The outlines of the complicated subject is presented to you because the specific case is also a general warning to all those who deal with comparable régimes.
A year ago, Geneva police (Switzerland is a genuine federal republic) arrested a Qaddafi-son for seriously abusing his (Arab) servants. The man spent a night in jail. His sister, who came to the “crime scene”, promised revenge on an “an eye for an eye” basis. As an opener, flights were blocked and oil deliveries stopped. The Leader’s billions were withdrawn and two Swiss (one a Moroccan dual citizen) in Libya were arrested for alleged visa violations.
Most of the above failed touched Switzerland much. Only the case of the two citizens raised concern. The coming months were filled with Libyan threats, and their demands for an apology plus financial compensation. Meanwhile the Nut of Tripoli held on to his hostages.
In August, acting under a dubious mandate, Mr. Merz, Switzerland’s protocol-president flew to Tripoli. Out of his depth, once on the scene he continued to make mistakes. He accepted that Qaddafi has no time for him and so he “negotiated” with the PM. In the course of the talks grey-mouse Merz who lacked experience with eccentric tyrants, decided, as he put it, to cut the Gordian knot. He signed a written agreement in which Switzerland apologized – for applying her laws. At the time this seemed to be what Libya had wanted. In exchange, he was told that the hostages could go home. At that juncture Merz, an honest man, made another mistake. He accepted that the two would not be allowed to return in his company but “by the end of August”. So he flew home to face hell for the apology. Promptly, the government jet was sent back to Tripoli to bring the hostages home. About two days later the Libyans ordered the jet to leave. The “illegals” may not go home on a government plane: they must use a commercial flight.
To make this understandable, a parallel event needs to be mentioned. Al-Meghari, the Lockerbie bomber, was “compassionately” released. That happened based on manipulated medical testimonies. Violating the agreement with Scotland and defining the rulers of Tripoli, a hero’s welcome was given to the returning mass murderer. (Meanwhile, al-Meghari appeared before forty African PM’s gathered for an anniversary. He got a standing ovation.) This might be the scenario that Libya intended to avoid when giving back its Swiss.
By September 1, after another agreed upon deadline expired, Libya claimed that it had fulfilled the agreement regarding the hostages. Allegedly, Libya had only agreed that something would be undertaken regarding the hostages. Tripoli claims that this was duly done. The Ministry of the Interior, acting through the fellow who had the celebrated “Bulgarian nurses” condemned to death, become active. While his bosses tried to put the dissolution of Switzerland on the UN’s agenda, this gentleman has interrogated the “suspects”. As a result, charges will be raised and the hostages will be given a trial. Sorry, there is no alternative to that. Libya has an independent judiciary which the executive cannot influence. However, a fair trial it will be, promises the Qaddafi clan. Who will dare to question the term with a knife at his gurgle?
Probably a nasty end scenario will follow by the time this is posted. Since it involves Qaddafi, no normal person can guess the terms of the next absurdity. Even if the case is still open ended, some conclusions emerge. If you work or have vacations – Cuba-visitors beware! – in an unpredictable tyranny, you do so at a risk. Whatever that might happen to you is incalculable. Risk-takers should know what they are doing. Their countries should not feel fully responsible for the fate of people who, being careless, jeopardize themselves. If ever Qaddafi is overthrown and manages to escape, he might find it difficult to get asylum in the kind of normal countries where the clan stashes away its loot.
2. Qaddafi might be anything that on the dial ranges between the “strange” and the insane. However, that he is able to function in the global arena where he is taken seriously is more significant than is his personal state of mind. That an outfit such as the one he runs can participate in international institutions and plays a role in the diplomatic life of the planet suggests something frightening about the prevailing world order. The fact that such régimes are able to participate on an equal footing points to conditions that are normal in an asylum for the insane. The problem is that in this case it is the nuts that have the keys.
3. September 1st was the official anniversary of the outbreak of WW2. Numerous documentaries about the Stalin Hitler pact that preceded it were aired. The two mass murderers divided their world. The agreement, especially its secret parts, made the war possible for Hitler. Through the deal, he avoided the old Central Powers’ main error, which was risking a two-front war. There is, however, something that these recollections missed. Hitler did not fight the war to free Russia and its subject peoples from Communist totalitarianism. (Had he done so he might have won. But in that case, he would not have been Hitler.) At the same time, Stalin had no war aim to rid Germany of totalitarian rule and to liberate the enslaved. The post war world would have been different if that would have been the case.
4. German politicians condemn, or at least voice reservations, about Germany’s participation in operations in Afghanistan. One argument, more often held privately than openly articulated, is that by being there the homeland becomes a terrorist target. Behind this sentiment, there lurks a basic mistake that is often the case when dealing with totalitarians that have universal aspirations. The fear of provocation followed by retaliation is based on a false assumption. It is that a system with a universal mission can be content to dominate its own country and not covet more.
5. It is being said that in Germany only one political party is not openly and – more dangerously – covertly and unconsciously, social democratic. In code that means that, some groupings have become collectivistic partners in left-of-center policies if not in name then in the substance of their program. The party of exception is Westerwelle’s FDP which is, in the classical sense, a genuinely Liberal party. It will, at best, get 15 per cent of the vote. (That might be less than what the barely reconstructed Communist will receive.) Why is it that this sad state of affairs describes the political landscape of numerous, here not enumerated countries? Politicians and parties have reason to like a state directed economic-social order. The reason is that there are silent arrangements in force. Regardless of the theories they represent, transcending official party lines, everybody gets a cut of tax-generated revenues to finance pet projects. These benefit all those who participate in the insider deals hatched out within the governing political class.
6. Undeterred by the hither infusion of billions, African states at a continental summit raised the issue of more funds. This is to be a compensation for the “North’s” damage to the global climate. It is to be reckoned with that a demand to come will be for land for resettlement.
7. When “they” say that the rich will “pay for it”, in reality they mean you. The main problem is that “you” think “they” mean someone else.
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